


Monkey Thrills

by Sarcophagus



Category: Milo Murphy's Law
Genre: Body Horror, Horror, M/M, Nightmares, Zombies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-31
Updated: 2020-10-31
Packaged: 2021-03-08 23:40:48
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,284
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27314947
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sarcophagus/pseuds/Sarcophagus
Summary: While sorting through alien garbage, Cavendish and Dakota have a disturbing experience.
Relationships: Balthazar Cavendish/Vinnie Dakota
Comments: 4
Kudos: 17





	Monkey Thrills

_On board the spaceship_ Firebug, _headed for the Whirlpool Galaxy:_

_"Can I borrow your VR set?"_

_"I dumped it on Earth with the rest of the garbage. It was malfunctioning. Got stuck in horror mode."_

_"Too bad. Oh well, maybe it'll give the monkeys a thrill."_

***

"There's the mirror maze! C'mon!"

Dakota grabbed Cavendish by the sleeve and pulled him through the entrance. 

The gallery was illuminated by cold white light. Everywhere he saw himself multiplied, every Cavendish heading in a different direction. He stopped for a moment to get his bearings. Someone was standing next to him, a popeyed grotesque with no chin. From above came a burst of recorded laughter. Curved mirrors, very droll.

He turned aside, and the multitude of Cavendishes turned as well. Another step had him confronted with a dwarf, crushed beneath an absurd stovepipe hat. Tinny laughter broke out again. It was a staccato sound: ha, ha, ha. The laugh, almost, of a robot. 

Where had Dakota got to?

He changed direction. Three mirror images faced him from various angles, looking perfectly ordinary except that one had a dark stain on his chest. A smudge on the mirror, evidently. Further off a man in a clown costume walked past. Cavendish adjusted his glasses and the clown made the same gesture, causing ha-ha-ha hilarity. Another reflection. How had they worked that trick? Well, never mind. He'd had enough of this place.

Once again all the Cavendishes went their separate ways. Except one, who cowered with his eyes wide open and his hands raised as if to ward off something outside the mirror frame. His terror was the funniest thing the canned laughter machine had ever seen.

"What --?"

Cavendish looked all around him. Nothing to see. Only --

The terrified man was gone from the mirror. He'd been replaced with a figure in a barrister's wig and gown, seen from behind. Slowly it turned towards him. It was himself, but his face was cracked like old china. The cracks widened. Eyes and nose and mouth fell away piece by piece. Behind them there was nothing, only blackness.

_Ha, ha, ha._

Cavendish whirled. The entrance was close, it must be. He hadn't gone far. But there was no entrance behind him, only more mirrors, mirrors everywhere.

To his right a Cavendish stepped out of his mirror. He was limping. With each uneven step his head jerked and bobbed on its broken neck. 

Another one crept forth, an eyeless charred thing that groped in the air like an insect. Then one like a mangled toy, one-armed and trailing his guts as he dragged himself along the floor. Another, and another, as many as there were reflections.

Cavendish tried to move, to run, but his legs felt as if they were stuck to the floor. At last he understood: he was the cowering man, hands raised, helpless to escape. The Cavendishes lurched and stumbled and crawled towards him. Someone was whimpering. The thin broken sound went on and on as the mechanical laughter echoed through the gallery. 

***

Dakota was crouching behind a dumpster. He tensed when a bunch of pistachions came close and exhaled when they moved on without spotting him. Their heels went click, click, click against the pavement. If it wasn't for that sound he'd almost believe they were human. The rubber masks looked hella convincing, to anyone who didn't know what they'd done to the humans.

He tightened his grip on the axe, his new best friend. When you needed to bust some heads nothing beat a good old baseball bat, but the axe was better for this job. It had heft and a wicked edge. It was made for killing trees.

He'd get one shot. He had to make it count.

And there was his target, on his own. Just walking down the street, click, click, click, like he wasn't a murderer. Looking just like -- just like --

Dakota hissed loudly. The pistachion halted, mildly curious, and peered round the side of the dumpster. 

"Fuck you!" Dakota swung the axe with the full force of his rage. 

At the moment of impact he shut his eyes. Warm spatter hit his face. He didn't expect sap to be warm. The smell -- 

Click, click, click.

His eyes flew open. 

The sound wasn't coming from the body. And that wasn't a mask. They'd fooled him but good.

Dakota started to laugh. He leaned against the dumpster, howling. He slammed his fist against the metal until it rang like a drum. His eyes ran and his throat ached and he just couldn't stop. 

***

Cavendish covered his face and instantly looked up again. The horrors were close enough to touch him now.

"Go away!" he screamed. "Leave me alone! _Stop!_ "

To his astonishment the reflections halted.

"Please," he gasped, trying not to look at them. One ghastly figure was directly in front of him with both eyeballs dangling from crushed sockets. "Please, I don't know what you want! I can't help you! It wasn't --"

Dear god, he was wrong. Every one of them had died because of him.

"My fault," he whispered. "I'm sorry."

Around him, or in his head, something shifted. The maimed things were dissolving. Everything faded to black.

***

Dakota didn't know what was up. He'd been on the job, in a field on the outskirts of Danville, and then he'd blanked out and -- and Cavendish was in front of him, white and trembling. He grabbed Dakota and pulled him into his arms. Dakota forgot to give a fuck about anything else and clutched him back.

They stood among the weeds holding each other close. Dakota's face was wet, though he couldn't remember why. He could feel Cavendish's heart going a mile a minute. 

"Dakota," Cavendish said faintly, "what happened? Do you know?"

He sounded so lost and scared. Dakota ached to reassure him. He thought the answer may be in his head if he dug around for it, but the idea made him sick. 

Something on the ground was whirring, bzz-t, bzz-t, bzz-t, like an injured fly. He grit his teeth at the sound. Cavendish scowled, looking a bit more like himself. "What's that awful noise?"

The object at his feet wasn't anything special. Just a metal disc with a few buttons, a blinking white light and some incomprehensible symbols. Typical piece of alien junk, but that goddamn buzzing... 

"Does that thing look dangerous, yet fragile to you?" Dakota asked.

Cavendish was synced up. "Indeed it does." He picked up a rock the size of a watermelon, aimed and let drop. The buzzing stopped with a satisfying crunch. "Ah, that's better."

"Yeah," Dakota said. His mood had instantly lightened. "Dunno about you, but I feel like we ought to be getting hazard pay."

Cavendish eyed him. "Speaking of which, how are you feeling?"

Dakota was startled. That wasn't a question Cavendish would normally ask. He took stock of himself. "I'm good," he said, almost not lying. "You?"

"The same." It might even be true, Dakota thought. He was looking slightly less like death warmed over.

Cavendish straightened up. "All right then, come on. We're knocking off." Taking Dakota by the elbow, he ushered him towards their van. Dakota didn't object. He was just as anxious to put some distance between the two of them and that alien gadget under the rock.

In the van Dakota buckled up while Cavendish got in the driver's seat. He considered getting a nut bar from the glove compartment, but he somehow wasn't feeling it.

"Remember anything yet?" he asked casually.

Cavendish wrenched his gaze away from the rear view mirror. "No. Nothing at all."

"Me either," said Dakota. His fingers stroked the handle of an invisible axe.


End file.
